Where Does Illinois Rank on the List of America’s Greenest States?
Life is all about the green. For some, that means cash. For others, it's all about the environment. For companies looking to expand their share of the marketplace by showing how much they care about the planet, it's both. For Illinois, it seems to be about being in the middle.
Personal finance website WalletHub did what they do so well--crunched the numbers on which of our 50 states, along with the District of Columbia, are doing the best job of being good stewards of the Earth, environmentally-speaking. Here's what they looked at:
In order to highlight the greenest states and call out those doing a poor job of caring for the environment, WalletHub’s analysts compared each of the 50 states in terms of 20 key metrics designed to illustrate each state’s environmental quality and the eco-friendliness of its policies. Our data set ranges from LEED-certified buildings per capita to share of energy consumption from renewable resources.
First the top 5 greenest states:
1) Vermont
2) Massachusetts
3) Oregon
4) Washington
5) Connecticut
And the top 5 least green states:
46) Oklahoma
47) North Dakota
48) West Virginia
49) Montana
50) Wyoming
As for Illinois, we wind up in the #24 spot overall. Kind of like the Goldilocks of states--not too hard, not too soft, but just right. Here's a breakdown of Illinois' numbers:
Greenness of Illinois (1=Greenest, 25=Avg.):
48th – Air Quality
18th – Soil Quality
6th – Water Quality
40th – % of Recycled Municipal Solid Waste
43rd – LEED-Certified Buildings per Capita
36th – % of Energy Consumption from Renewable Sources
25th – Energy Consumption per Capita
4th – Gasoline Consumption (in Gallons) per Capita
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